


Hunting the Necrotrogue

by AJHall



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marlows - Antonia Forest
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJHall/pseuds/AJHall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Hogsmeade cemetery, six in ten of the Hogswarts' Sixth Formers hunting a Dark Creature are conscious of a nervous system.</p><p>And Nicola Marlow is in a blue funk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunting the Necrotrogue

**Author's Note:**

> This fits into Ankaret's [ Wand With Sixteen Strings ](http://archiveofourown.org/series/1333) series, a fusion in which the Marlow twins, Nicola and Lawrie, arrive at Hogwarts expecting to be sorted, like their siblings, into Gryffindor and instead end up in Hufflepuff.

"This time tomorrow," Nicola muttered to herself, "all this will be over."

She thrust her shaking wand-hand deep inside her robes, hoping any casual observer would interpret the gesture as nonchalant. _Like Napoleon. In the portraits_ , she thought, not because she believed it was true, especially, but in hope that the small act of injustice would raise her spirits.

It didn't work.

A voice sounded in her head, all too reminiscent of Ginty at her wits-endish, premonition-riddled worst.

 _But — once in every lifetime tomorrow never comes._

The carved angel on the tomb next to her seemed to be sneaking sidelong glances at her from behind the stone hands clasped in front of its carved features.

Before she knew what she was doing she had shuffled embarrassingly close to the next cloaked figure in the straggling line of Sixth-years that wended in and out between the tombs of Hogsmeade's graveyard.

A hand — looking pale as marble in the glow of the torches entrusted by Authority to Hannah Abbott and such favoured souls — reached out and pushed back its hood, revealing hair even lighter than her own.

"Of every ten people who go hunting Necrotroges," Draco Malfoy drawled, "they say six are conscious of a nervous system and two are in a blue funk. Which are you?"

Before Nicola could respond he had caught her, rather firmly, and pulled her hard against him, his hand tipping her jaw up to his face, his arm around her waist.

"Awk!" she gasped, before his lips — warm and surprisingly soft — found hers.

He smelt clean and reassuring — of soap, mostly, and of the sharp citrus-and-sandalwood tang of that after-shave Grandmother had sent Giles from Paris, which he'd stopped using on the grounds that it gave every girl he met on shore-leave _des idées au dessous de sa gare_ , as Rowan put it.

Unlike Nicola's sole previous experience of kissing — which had been over eighteen months ago, and involved one of the Durmstrang delegation to the Yule Ball, whose name she'd not been able to pronounce at the time and been certainly unable to remember ever since — Draco seemed to have a miraculous ability to manage his nose — and hers, too, for that matter. This was without that previous mess of slobber, broken English and clashing cartilage — in fact it was rather—

" _Separe!_ "

Nicola shot quite five feet away, coming to a painful stop on some coffee-sugared, brass-fendered family monument. When she opened her eyes Draco was slowly disentangling himself from a pink granite excrescence, featuring three dragons — a Hungarian Short-snout and two Welsh Greens — a Kelpie or so, two Lethifolds, a Hipposcampus, several Acromantulae and a positive pack of Kneazles. She hoped, for the sake of whoever the tomb commemorated, that he'd been a big game hunter, rather than having been spectacularly unlucky while conducting one of WWN's famed Wildlife Rambles.

Professor Snape was looking down at her with an expression which would hardly had disgraced an Erumpent with a nasty case of the Epizootic Sniggers.

"Five points from Hufflepuff, Miss — ah — Marlow."

"Bu—"

His voice purred, silkily. "Miss Marlow. You may try to argue that you were more kissed against than kissing, but I suggest you consider how your house-mates might regard another twenty points against Hufflepuff when deciding whether you _should_ do so."

She paused. And then, unexpectedly, there was a long-fingered hand — as cool and pale as a carving on a tomb — feeling for hers. Clasping her cold hand and squeezing, reassuringly. She scrambled to her feet.

"No — ah — sir. Points accepted."

Professor Snape's gaze drifted over their heads, into the far distance. "Ah. Miss N. Marlow. I presume." He nodded, passed on down the line.

"I think," Draco said, "this might help." He was holding out a flask — the raw odour of Firewhiskey breathed up from it. His eyes — even in the fitful light of the torches — were unnaturally bright. "Tell me. From one who is — mostly — a coward — what is it that makes someone entirely brave — except sometimes?"

"Not having to face — that."

Nicola's hand gestured, blind but eloquent — not that he could understand a word of it! That. Which the good couple summoned by _The Monkey's Paw_. The thing in the lower bunk. Whatever came, my lad, when one whistled.

The Necrotroge – the Dark creature who haunted graveyards and chewed corpses.

In short, ghosts.

She gulped. If it hadn't been for the Friar's warm reassuring presence Nicola could hardly imagine having survived a week at Hogwarts. Sometimes, even now, she woke restlessly, kicking the blankets, having imagined herself crushed between the Gryffindor's terrifyingly anatomical guardian spirit and the Sorting Hat. She wondered, sometimes, if Lawrie knew, on some level, and regretted that treachery.

 _Without my fear we would have both been in Gryffindor._

Draco forced the flask into her hand. "Hunting powder." His face was carved and set in the torchlight.

Nicola took one gulp and then another. She smiled, sidelong at Draco. "I think — just possibly — a nervous system. And —"

Far along the wavering line of torches a cry went up.

"After it!"


End file.
